Britain entered a crucial week of post-Brexit talks with the European Union on Monday by rejecting the EU’s demand that it drop plans to breach the legally binding agreement it signed on its departure from the bloc. The EU told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to brace for a legal fight.
The EU insisted that abiding by every last detail of the international treaty that regulated the U.K.'s departure on Jan. 31 was key to maintaining trust and hopes of salvaging a rudimentary trade deal in the next few weeks.
After a short meeting between the two sides in Brussels, U.K. Brexit planning minister Michael Gove said Britain would not withdraw its Internal Market Bill, which includes clauses to override parts of the Brexit withdrawal treaty.
The British government unveiled the controversial bill last month which is winding its way through Parliament and would override parts of the Brexit treaty that Johnson struck with the EU last year. If it becomes law, Johnson's Internal Market Bill will give the U.K. the power to disregard part of the Brexit withdrawal treaty dealing with trade to and from Northern Ireland, which shares a 300-mile (500-kilometer) border with EU member Ireland.
Johnson has said he would not put it past the EU to abuse the treaty to put the Northern Irish part of the U. K. in an economic chokehold. The EU denies this and insists the full withdrawal agreement must be respected for fear that it otherwise might reignite tensions on the island of Ireland.
Britain and the EU jointly promised in the Brexit divorce agreement to ensure there are no customs posts or other obstacles on the Northern Ireland-Ireland border, no matter what the final terms of Brexit. The open border is key to the stability that underpins the 1998 Good Friday peace accord that ended decades of violence between Irish nationalists and British unionists.
The last scheduled round of trade talks began Tuesday as scores of officials meet in Brussels in talks presided by Europe's Michel Barnier and his counterpart David Frost. "This is the final formal round of negotiations but we expect discussion to continue in the run up to the European council, which is taking place on Oct. 15-16," a Downing Street spokesman said.
"Significant gaps remain as the EU still needs to adopt more realistic policy positions, but we are ready to work as hard as necessary to move things forward this week," the spokesperson said.
Both London and Brussels say a deal on a free trade agreement must be struck by mid-October to allow time for it to be ratified before coming into force from Jan. 1 next year. Failure to do so would see trade conducted on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, with higher tariffs and quotas and almost certain economic chaos for Britain and Europe.
Barnier and Frost met last week to prepare the round of talks, in meetings that London characterized as "constructive." But European diplomats remained cautious that a breakthrough was possible, seeing this round as a preliminary step before a final push later in October.